I finally had a chance to go through last year's calendar and tally up some stats from last caretaking winter.
11/16
The Bruhaus, which is normally way too expensive (and I would never go there) has been offering 25c wings and $10 pitchers of beer, so we joined Zach and Mary for wings and a Broncos game.
11/23
We've been working on getting the cabins ready for winter, putting on shutters and such. There's been a little snow, but not much. It's been the least snowiest November on record for billy after the least snowiest September and October on record. One of the cool things we saw while doing cabin closing was a beautiful white short-tailed weasel. We also got a pack-rat in a trap.
We went to the Bruhaus for more 25c wings and cheap pitchers with Benn and Sophia.
11/24
Mom arrived to Crested Butte for Thanksgiving
11/25
We drove out to Mount Crested Butte for the town Thanksgiving. It was delicious as always. This year was much different as last year we had to ski in during a big an deep storm.
11/26
Zach and Ellis came over for dinner with us in Gothic, and we played some games
11/27 Happy Thanksgiving!
To work up an appetite pre Thanksgiving I ran from Gothic to Pitchfork in Mt CB where Zach and Mary live. We had a good Thanksgiving and then played some games afterwards
11/30
We finally got some good snow. Zach picked me up and we were still able to drive up in his Subaru to Schofield Pass (though it was pretty deep). We then did a ski tour up to the top of Mount Belleview.
After I got back from the ski tour, Elisha and I headed down to the Bruhaus to watch the Broncos and get 25c wings. Zach eventually joined us.
12/2
It snowed pretty good again and Zach, Elisha, and I went to CB to play volleyball at the high school.
12/4
We went to town to go to a improv musical comedy show called Fa la la la ha ha at the Center for the Arts with bro. But first we went to dinner at Sherpa Cafe with Benn, Sophia, Tyler, and Berry.
On the way in we rigged up a rope on the old RMBL ford explorer, and Elisha towed me out of Gothic as I skied the powder on the road. Coming back at night, I also got towed in. As it was a full moon and super bright, I could ski without lights, no problem. Lots of fun! We've been using the explorer complete with chains on all 4 tires to go in and out of Gothic as there is a decent amount of snow on the road (18-ish inches), but the county hasn't closed it yet.
12/5
This morning Gothic road officially closed! A lot later than normal, but now we're back to isolated living where we'll have to ski to go in and out. Elish and I did a ski tour up by the Gothic campground.
12/6
We got over a foot of snow overnight. I did a big ski tour up on Snodgrass (2nd bowl and Abby Lane) with bro and Jake. As soon as I got back, I had a quick bite to eat and then we skied into town. We went to the little Christmas tree lighting and festivities on Elk Ave. It felt just like a Hallmark Christmas tree. The road was blocked off and covered in snow, there were carolers and cocoa, and people dressed for the cold and the season, and it was snowing. We were mostly there to go to our realtor's Christmas party. It was nice. Lots of really good food and drinks, including cocktails, all free.
After filling ourselves up, we headed to the Center for the Arts for CBAC's Avalanche Awareness night and fundraiser. It was a good time. Bro made a really good movie and also gave a talk. There were also several other speakers and a big raffle. We sat with B-rad from my summer CHESS team. We skied back home under a bright moon (so we didn't need headlamps) and fresh snow. We arrived home just after midnight.
12/7
I skied 3 laps of fresh powder up on Snodgrass. We watched the Skimo olympic qualifier race in which Cam Smith (A Crested Buttian) and his partner were competing. They needed to beat the Canadians to qualify for the Olympics. They did this handily and also dominated and won the whole race. It was funny because this fall, we saw Cam training on Mount Crested Butte when we were at the summit of the mountain looking at the fall colors view. He came running up guides ridge, past us at the summit, and kept running down.
12/8
Elisha and I skied a lap up on the 403
12/9
Benn, Sophia, Elisha, and I skied up the Avery peak trail torwards Virginia basin to cut our Christmas trees. We then skied the trees down on a sled and decorated them. I also carved a pumpkin that Benn and Sophia had given us from a farm near Paonia. I carved a Christmas tree, nativity star, and snowman onto the pumpkin.
12/10
I did 2 laps up Snodgrass, but it's super warm. Record breaking temps for December. In the evening Elisha made cookies, and I set up the snow village.
12/11
We skied out to town to run some errands. I needed to get my boots punched out to get some base repair done on my skis. Check the mail, etc. We then went to a RMBL Christmas party at the hostel, which they just recently bought from Eleven (small world eh?). They're calling it something foolish and tech bro like RMBL365. I've been calling it the nest. Or maybe I should say the den? or the hive? Anyways, it was a cookie and book exchange. Some yummy cookies for sure and some interesting books. After that party we headed up the hill to Mt CB to go to the adaptive sports Christmas party. They had delicious cocktails, food, and desserts, all for free. As well as some live music. There were some people we knew there, so it was fun to chat. But also we sat at the table with Cam Smith, Crested Butte's newest Olympian! It was fun to hear his story. I skied back under starlight. The stars were magnificent!
12/12
I skied back into town to pick up my boots, but more importantly for the Great Clawdia Heist of 2025. Clawdia, who we had cat-sat before, was in need of someone to cat sit her for most of the rest of the winter. Her owner, had to go into rehab and the current person taking care of her was going to be moving and had a mean pitbull. Technically cats (pets really) aren't allowed in RMBL. This is because they have the high likelihood of disrupting the research: eating marmots or squirrels, peeing and pooping on plants and soil, etc. etc. So they've made a blanket rule of no pets. This seems a bit crazy in the winter when there isn't much research out here and when the place is buried under feet of snow. We asked our supervisor, and he said he wouldn't care, but that we should keep it quiet so as not to upset anyone.
Today was the day we planned to ski her in. And would you believe it? Our supervisor's supervisor decided to ski up valley as a training ski (From Snodgrass Trailhead to Rustlers). I ran into him as I was skiing out. This meant it was a high likelihood we'd see him on our ski in. And we weren't even sure the best way to transport Clawdia in as we figured it would be traumatic for her. She already doesn't like riding in cars. We had thought about holding her. We thought about putting her in a backpack and carrying her on our front. Or just putting her in a sled in her cage. It was made all the more tricky by there often being dogs on the trail and with the recent unseasonably warm weather that was hard frozen from a cold night making the trail very icy and fast for the downhills.
In the end we put her in the sled in her cage and covered her up with a blanket so no one could tell we had a cat. And the plan was, if we saw our head boss, to just ski quickly by him (so he wouldn't here her meow if she did) and say I had a meeting to get to (true, as I actually had 2 zoom meetings scheduled). In the end, we only passed one guy, who did have a dog. I was ready with my pole to go after the dog if it did anything to the sled, but it didn't. We didn't run into our head boss in the end. I pulled her the final way up the hill, with 7 minutes to spare before my first meeting. We let her out, and she immediately began exploring. She has found her favorite perch already. It's out over some beams that we have laid a mattress we don't use. It gives her height (just like a cougar likes), she has a good view, and it's warm and often in the sun. Welcome to Gothic Clawdia!
12/16
We skied into town in the evening to have dinner with Zach, Mary, and Ellis at The Gourmet Noodle restaurant as they were having a really good locals meal deal. We then played some volleyball in the rec league before spending the night at the Hostel in town. RMBL owns the hostel now (which I call the nest or the den), so we can stay there.
12/17
Skied back in from town. Then watched several Christmas movies! (The Grinch, Elf, and Home Alone)
12/18
We skied out of Gothic to head to Colorado Springs. There had been a big windstorm the night before, so there were a few downed trees across the road. It's been an insanely warm, dry, and extra windy December. It's been one of the lowest snow seasons on record so far and the temperatures have been 20+F warmer than average. That's really crazy! That means highs in the 60s in Denver. Yikes!
When we got to the Springs, we met Elisha's friend Sarah for a really great happy hour. $3 margaritas and fancy tacos! We then went to Aunt Hope and Uncle Pete's retirement community and a tour before meeting Cousin Jill and Rick and their daughter Jessica for a yummy Chinese Dinner. Next it was on to Jake and Elya's to spend the night. Jake and Elya have added one more person to their family as they are fostering a refugee from Guatemala.
12/19
We hung out in the Springs with Jake and his family. Took a walk and played some basketball.
In the afternoon we hopped in our cars to drive up I-70 to Georgetown in order to take the Christmas train. But again, it was super windy. When we got to Idaho Springs, the power was out in the whole town (due to the energy companies shutting off power to avoid fires if electrical poles got blown down). When we got to Georgetown, it was the same scenario. The hotel that Jake and his family were to be staying in was completely dark. No power, not heat (they changed their reservation to stay in Summit County). BUT...we were very lucky in that the far end of Georgetown had power as it's where the jail for the county was and they had to keep power on, so the train and its lights would be running! We had dinner at a brewery near the hotel that was open because it had a generator.
After dinner and brews we headed to the train. The train was really fun. It chugged along Christmas lights and little lit up villages. They served charcuterie and drinks and of course Santa came by. The train was also decorated really nicely. At the end we visited Mrs. Claus' shop for cookies and hot cocoa.
After the train we drove down to Nate Dub's place in Denver.
12/20
We met mom and dad at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to watch an IMAX video called "Ocean Paradise" about Palmyra Atoll, Johnson Atoll, and Midway Island. Very beautiful underwater scenes. Then Elisha and I visited the museum including the special exhibits of elephants and legos.
We met mom and dad again the the late afternoon for dinner at the 16th street mall. After a yummy dinner we went to one of those candlelight music performances. It was at a beautiful old church downtown, and it was a string quartet playing the Nutcracker and other Christmas music, surrounded by candles. After the amazing musical performance, we walked to the City and County building, which is always lit up beautifully. Then we walked down to near union station to go to the Christmas market and the really cool xcel tree that is lit up with an amazing amount of lights that twinkle and move to Christmas music.
12/21 Happy Winter Solstice (but it's still way tooo hot)
Nate, Elisha, and I met Liz (former boss in Antarctica) and Alex at the Machine bar near Nate's house for some pre-game drinks. Then we walked to Mile High Stadium to watch the Broncos play the Jaguars. The whole experience being at the game with the pre-game and festivities was a lot of fun, but unfortunately the Donkeys played poorly and we lost.
After the game we went out for tacos with Liz and Alex and then spent the night at their house.
12/22
We drove back to Crested Butte and skied back into Gothic to see Clawdia.
12/24
We skied into town in the evening, pulling a sled full of gifts. We had appetizers and won ton soup at Zach and Mary's with my parents and Chris & Cheese and Sam. We then skied back home with a touch of snow falling
12/25
It snowed today (2"), but first it rained a little bit. This is INSANE! It's never rained in December here, and before that, the latest rain was very early November. The weather is just crazy this year. Hopefully this isn't the new normal. So depressing has this winter been. Hardly any snow, insanely high temperatures, and now rain.
We skied into town for Christmas dinner (Fondue) and fancy cocktails at Zach and Mary's with mom and dad. Of course we also watched "Love Actually", my dad's favorite Christmas movie.
12/26
We skied back out to town to go to Slogars for family style chicken dinner for Mary's birthday. We then went to Zach and Mary's before skiing back.
12/27
The road is so packed down and hard from lack of snow that I actually RAN as my workout to Snodgrass and back. The good news was that it was in heavy snow.
12/28
We got 7.5" of snow overnight, so I did my first ski tour (on Snodgrass) in quite a while
12/29
We also finally got some cold weather. Perhaps the first time below 0 this winter, which is very unusual.
12/30
Elish and I did a good ski tour out by the 403
12/31 New Year's Eve
I skied a lap on fresh snow on Snodgrass and then Elisha met me on Gothic road and we skied into Mount CB to watch the torchlight parade and fireworks show. It's always really cool. We then went down to the hostel and chilled for a bit before going to CB South for an all you can eat crab fest with Zach and Alex (from Durango). I just got a burger because I've had a few times where I puked after eating a bunch of crab, and I figured it wasn't worth it to pay $35 to puke.
After dinner, Zach headed out dancing, and Elisha and I headed back to the mountain. We skinned up the resort to enjoy some ciders up on the mountain and then have a nearly full moon ski back down. When all you ski is backcountry snow, it's sometimes fun to get to rip down the hill on a fresh groomed corduroy.
We rung in the New Year watching some Nate Bargatze and then watching more fireworks from town. We stayed the night at the hostel.
1/1/26 Happy New Year!
We skied back in to Gothic is a decent snowstorm by going a different way than normal. Instead of taking the road, we skinned up Snodgrass and then descended down 4th bowl. It was perfect timing as just 100 meters in front of us on the road when we reached the road were Mary, Lisa (Mary's mom) and Ellis (who was having a bit of a breakdown. Elisha went on ahead to get the fire going in the cabin, and I pulled the sled for Mary. Zach joined later.
We had a cozy hangout time: tea, fire, spaghetti with homemade sauce, games (code names), and then watched a movie. The whole crews stayed the night
1/2
It snowed pretty good overnight and Zach and I did a really great run down 3rd bowl. I then did 2 more laps on 4th bowl before I skied into CB to meet Elisha, Benn, and Sophia for the new RMBL hostel open house. There were 8 stations, and we were running one of them (the winter-caretaker station). There was also amazing appetizers and charcuterie boards made by Matt Santor (who does those fancy meals for Eleven) as well as beer and wine, that even us running the event got to enjoy. Zach, Mary, and Ellis stopped by and Zach won the raffle.
The other 3 caretakers stayed overnight at the hostel, but we have to have 1 caretaker in Gothic every night, so I skied out under a huge full moon. Definitely no need for a headlamp! I spent the evening drinking Chai tea, soaking my feet in my foot spa, watching Les Mis, and snuggling with Clawdia.
1/3
I skied 4 laps on Snodgrass with amazing snow and beautiful weather
1/4
Did 3 more great powder laps, with Elisha joining for 1 lap.
1/5
It snowed all day and I did 3 great powder laps on Snodgrass
1/6
Did 5 amazing powder laps! Such good snow. Elisha joined me for 3 of the laps.
1/7
Did 4 amazing powder laps on 4th bowl. Red Lady, the fox, funnily followed my tracks from the day before all the way up to Abby Lane.
1/8
More snow and more good powder laps on Snodgrass
1/9
Elisha and I had nice powder laps on Aspen Alley
1/10
Did a very early A.M. cross-country ski, breaking trail up the valley. It was COLD out. -16.3F was our low.
Some great powder laps on Snodgrass.
1/11
More awesome pow laps up on the Snodgrass saddle. Elisha joined for a couple today.
1/12
A bunch more powder laps off of the Snodgrass Saddle. Watched the 2 foxes this evening (Red Lady and Ash) court each other.
1/13
I skied some laps on Snodgrass and then we skied into town to play volleyball. We spent the night at the hostel as we had plans to shop in Gunnison the next day.
1/14
Shopped in Gunnison and did some other errands. I did a 5.5 mile run to get some exercise. We ate lunch at the newish Thai place before heading back to CB and skiing into Gothic
1/15
They groomed Gothic road overnight, so I did a skate ski early this a.m.
1/16
Benn and Sophia had us over for a delicious fondue meal and Elisha made homemade ice cream
1/17
A big sports day for me. In the morning I skied a lap on Snodgrass. Then watched the Gators beat #10 Vanderbilt. We then skied into town to watch the Broncos playoff game against the Bills at the Wooden Nickel which was serving 25 cent wings and $12 bucket of 6 beers. Tom Day also joined us. It was a very exciting game, with the Broncos winning in OT. It was fun to be at the bar with the crowd rooting and going wild for the Broncos. We skied home under beautiful starlit sky.
1/18
Jack Snow and friends are staying at Crystal, so I did a big ski tour with them (1st bowl, 2nd bowl, 3rd bowl, and 4th bowl on Snodgrass)
1/19
I did a big ski tour today skiing 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Abby, Baby Abby, and Saddle Bowls on Snodgrass. In the evening we got a special treat of some Auroras. Not the brightest we've had here, but we could still see them with the naked eye as a faint red glow.
1/20
I did a big tour with Bro (and his friend Miles) up Baldy. We skied a couple of steep chutes off of Baldy's ridge, including ******. On the way back we saw a young moose.
1/23
It started to snow pretty heavily and Elisha and I did a tour up towards the cliffs of Gothic in a cirque near the 403
1/24
A good powder day! We skied several laps in Aspen Alley
1/25
Very cold in the morning (-23F). I went out before sunrise and skied 3 laps on Snodgrass. We then skied into town to meet Bro and B-rad for 25c wings at the Wooden Nickel and to watch the Broncos in the AFC Championship game. It was a good game, with the Broncos unfortunately losing 10-7 having missed 2 field goals in the dumping snow in Denver.
1/26
I did a big ski tour up on the slopes of Mount Bellview. I saw a coyote up on the ridge while I was skiing.
1/27
I took Elisha on a beautiful ski tour up to the ridge of Baldy. We then skied some fun mellow lines back down to Gothic road.
1/28
I finished reading volume 1 of Sarah Airres "The Worst Journey in the World" graphic novel. This book was meaningful to me as I guided Sarah to Wilson's Igloo back when I worked for Environmental in Antarctica.
1/30
I skied out in the evening to stay at the RMBL hostel
1/31
Today was the big day of the Alley Loop! Perhaps my favorite event in Crested Butte. It's a ski race that starts and finishes through the alleys of town and then goes up the gorgeous Slate River Valley for the middle section. It's a costume party and an event all of the town comes out for. I dressed up in some bright colored 70's type clothes and raced the 10k freestyle (I skated). Elisha dressed as a unicorn, Zach as a banana, and Ellis as a giraffe. I ended up getting 5th overall for Men and 1st overall for the over 40 age group.
There were some amazing costumes out there for the 5k in which everyone goes all out with their costumes. Benn and Sophia's group did a "business" group that made fun of the rich for destroying the valley and making life hard for the average American. There was a big group dressed up as Cam Smiths with Olympic rings and other things. Cam Smith is the Crested Butte Olympian who qualified in the ski mountaineering individual and relay races. There were lots of political messages regarding ICE. "More Snow, Less Ice" was a good sign. There were a group of moms pulling their babies in chariots with signs on the back of the chariots saying "I may take naps, but I'm still woke." There's a big downhill near the end that is fun to watch because there are quite a lot of big crashes.
After the race, Elisha went shopping to Gunnison and I went out and skated the nordic trails (you get a free nordic day pass with entry to the race) doing another 13 miles. It was amazing! I was skating around the town loop which has amazing views of the snowy mountains as the full moon was rising and the sun was setting and setting the peaks and clouds aglow in a blazing orange.
That night we went to the Almont Resort with Zach, Mary, and Ellis for an all you can eat Luau. Just what I needed after all my skiing! They had great poke and pulled pork amongst other things.
